Unemployment rate falls to 10.5% in November – the Observer

The unemployment rate started to decrease again in November and reached to 10.5%, down 1.8 percentage points than the level a year ago, as a result, also, of the numbers from October, which have been improved, a result of new information, from 10.8% to 10.6%, reported Friday the National Statistics Institute (INE). Despite the falling rate, there are less than five thousand people with employment.

The numbers of November are still provisional, as they are always the most recent figures from the INE employment-related monthly, and are subject to revisions when the Institute will publish the figures of unemployment in December, which will be held in February next.

For now, the numbers from the INE show that the rate of unemployment is falling, meaning that the number of people who are considered unemployed according to the statistical criteria, in percentage of the working age population, is decreasing. I had already fallen in October, as it has been happening consecutively. The values for October to have been improved this month: now fall down a tenth to a rate of 10.5%.

The problem of these accounts, in respect of provisional figures in November, is that, if it is true that the percentage of unemployed is falling, it is also a fact that there are fewer people with jobs. According to the INE, in November there were less than 11 thousand unemployed. But it was also the least 5,300 people with employment in the Portuguese economy. Employment has fallen more among women and adults (between 25 and 74 years), while remaining unchanged for men and youth.

These two effects together are possible only because the number of the active population – the number of people that are part of the labour force in Portugal – which is used as the basis for calculating these rates has declined. This can happen for a number of factors: retirement, departure of the lists because they do not actively look for employment or change of country, for example.

The trend, even so, continues to be positive. In the figures that the INE became final this month, those that are relative to the October data are more positive than those that were released last month. The unemployment rate fell three-tenths from September to October, instead of a tenth, as had been expected. This represents, in addition to the disturbed in rate, most of 13.4 thousand people to work in September, or more 9,3 thousand persons than in July.

Even looking at the November data relating to the number of people unemployed compared to August (three months before), we note a significant decrease in the number of unemployed people, nearly 25 thousand people, while there are over 2,8 thousand persons with employment since then.